Snark Horse is a book of 70 highly-detailed one-bar compositions by pianist / composer Matt Mitchell and percussionist / composer Kate Gentile designed to incite inventive, multi-directional improvisation. It is also the name of a revolving cast of musicians – including Mitchell and Gentile – who have performed this music in various combinations since 2013. Mitchell's prior release, Phalanx Ambassadors, was called by Popmatters "a high watermark for the new jazz... a breathtaking jawdropper from one of the best pianists and composers now working." Gentile's 2017 debut release, Mannequins, was described by The New York Times as "full of stuttering rhythms and teetering intervallic jumps; an array of textures — sometimes chiming, sometimes abraded — disorient you even as they deepen your listening."
For this new recording, Mitchell and Gentile convened eight other singular musicians – all of whom have taken part in Snark Horse performances over the years – in varying combinations. Despite the small nuggets of musical information, their approach is still jazz-oriented: the musicians first play, and then improvise on the tunes. The one-bar compositions can be looped, connected, made into vamps, transposed, inverted, alternated, played together to create other-worldly counterpoint, basically in infinite permutations. Ultimately, Mitchell and Gentile’s intention behind Snark Horse is to make a highly improvisational and expansive environment using compressed versions of the kinds of material they use in their longer pieces. The compositions help foster a unique, highly imaginative universe for the musicians to show off their individual takes on this truly idiosyncratic music. Their energy is captured in over 270 minutes of music, interwoven with 60 additional minutes of electronic material composed and constructed by Mitchell in response to the group recordings. The entire daunting project presents the musicians’ resourceful creativity to full effect.
1. flock adulation
2. compartments | 's partial
3. hem(atoadaso)da
4. a pouting grimace | greasy puzzle
5. forn
6. pheromone quiz
7. deep recess
8. fertile pinwheels
9. key tettle | FLARDLE
10. igh | dogmacile
11. trapezoids | matching tickles
12. all tall ghosts
13. nudgelet
14. thumbly
15. asymptotic rest area
16. underblobb sys
17. feral pineals
18. torpid blather | fuck your capitalization style | pendulum wobbles
19. teeming molten holdings
20. thing-fact | theoretical muscle
21. adrenal halos | dog mma((t)t)gic
22. alphabotanical
23. bogs and silence
24. fickle laughing
25. for teens | spinal thought | peripheral drome
26. infractal sentences
27. glubz | spelling bad on purpose
28. garlic plastics
29. f tessellations | chimeric numbers
30. tooth helmet
31. Tørn
32. feebleau
33. fruit velvet
34. mind google | end of something
35. regular falutin'
36. supple bicepsual | is jingles | utter balbis
37. phoofaux | rejected names | high popes
38. startling and diaphanous | the gnostic and the spastic
39. B
40. strikes me as wanting to make me barf | clump 3
41. mad homonyms | phex
42. plungeon
43. ought gobs | T
44. breach zone
45. elegiac foldouts | gluey clamor
46. mighnutes
47. glue cubes | inkblot terrain | clock levitation | cat secrets | bludgement
48. catjinx
49. fettleau | a spree...canopy
the Snark Horsekestra:
Kate Gentile - compositions, drums & percussion
Matt Mitchell - compositions, piano, modular synthesizer, Prophet-6, MicroFreak & electronics
Kim Cass - acoustic & electroacoustic bass
Ben Gerstein - trombone
Jon Irabagon - tenor, mezzo-soprano, sopranino, soprillo, & mezzo-soprano saxophones & alto clarinet
Davy Lazar - trumpet, piccolo trumpet & cornet
Mat Maneri - viola
Ava Mendoza - guitar
Matt Nelson - tenor & alto saxophones
Brandon Seabrook - guitar & tenor banjo
All 6 discs in a clamshell style box. Comes with a beautiful 12-page booklet containing a breakdown of which musicians play on which tracks, which pieces are by Matt and which are by Kate, and words by each band member of the Snark Horsekestra and mixing/mastering wizard David Torn.
Includes digital pre-order of Snark Horse [Box Set]. You get 10 tracks now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.
Digital Album
Streaming + Download
Pre-order of Snark Horse [Box Set]. You get 10 tracks now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.
